Railways on the Air 2023

Railways on the air 2023

Saturday September 23^rd and Sunday 24^th September

We operated from the Nottingham Transport Heritage Centre, Ruddington, Nottingham.

The home of the Nottingham Heritage Railway under the callsign GB0NTH.

We had activated before from this location back in 2019 back then it was called Great Central Railway (Nottingham).

On the Saturday Stefan – M0OSL, Paul – G1SGZ, Ian – G8VXG, Connor – 2E0EIY & Derry – 2E0RRF setup the station consisting of 20/40/80m Trapped Dipole, Tri-band collinear, Yaesu FT100D & Icom 706 MKIIG.

We slightly changed our location this time around by placing the gazebo on the platform against the fencing, but still allowing us to set up the antennas in the same location directly behind the ticket office as we had previously done on other times we had activated this location.

To be honest, this was a better location. Especially if we had any substantial rain fall as we had on the last event, where we did get slightly water logged.

 Saturday was a little slow on the bands, allowing us to add a decent amount of FT8 contacts in the log, but we also started to log other ROTA stations.

Sunday, we had a slight change in operators Rob – G6PKY came along in place of Paul and Ian was unable to return.

Sunday was a better day for chasing the ROTA stations finally managing record 20 few ROTA stations, which allowed us to submit for the award scheme.

The weather held out the best it could, with only a little rain over the weekend which was mostly through the night.

We were also fortunate enough this weekend that NTHC was also hosting the Miniature Traction Engine Rally. Which allowed us to take break and engage with the steam enthusiasts.  Fun was had by all and with this being the last event in the season for us, we always like to finish off on a high.

Our thanks and appreciation to NTHC for their hospitality and allowing us to operate from this location.